{"id":11109,"date":"2010-03-30T15:29:25","date_gmt":"2010-03-30T22:29:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2010\/03\/30\/ghalenoei-plays-down-sepahans-sluggish-start\/"},"modified":"2010-03-30T15:29:25","modified_gmt":"2010-03-30T22:29:25","slug":"ghalenoei-plays-down-sepahans-sluggish-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/2010\/03\/30\/ghalenoei-plays-down-sepahans-sluggish-start\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghalenoei plays down Sepahan\u2019s sluggish start"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ghalenoei-ac2007-1\"AFC – ESFAHAN, Sepahan boss Amir Ghalenoei claimed his side are yet to show anything like their true potential in this year’s AFC Champions League but believes the Iranians are still in good shape to reach the knockout stage. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Alexander Geynrikh’s second-half free-kick condemned Sepahan to a 2-1 defeat at Pakhtakor last week and they currently prop up Group C with two points ahead of the return clash with the Uzbeks at the Foolad Shahr on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

And Ghalenoei wants his side to shrug off their lethargic start as the group stage approaches the second half.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven’t got any good results at all. I\u2019m the only one in charge of these poor results and wouldn\u2019t like to blame anyone for the lacklustre performances we had in the first games of the ACL,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing we should do is to win the game. Unlike Al Shabab, who have skilful players, Pakhtakor are physically potent. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are only two points away from the second and the third teams in our group and that means we still have good qualifying chances. <\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the fact that we have two home games in hand, we\u2019re not disappointed and we\u2019ll do our best to progress even as first in the group.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pakhtakor coach Miodrag Radulovic, meanwhile, has promised plenty of attacking intent from his side as the group leaders look to take a huge step towards the last 16.<\/p>\n

\u201cSepahan is undoubtedly the best team of the group. We played an offensive game against them in Tashkent and that was why we could beat them,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how to instruct my players to play defensively, so I\u2019ll send them onto the pitch just to attack. <\/p>\n

\u201cCurrently we\u2019re leading the group with six points and I am sure if we win the match, we will make sure we progress as the top team of the group. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was very satisfied with my team\u2019s performance last week against Sepahan. We have for sure the best qualifying chances but after tomorrow\u2019s clash, we will know which other team can qualify to the next round together with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Radulovic did admit, however, that Pakhtakor were somewhat lucky to get the better of Sepahan last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI should say we were fortunate to beat them because we had two injured players and couldn\u2019t field them,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut they are fully recovered and for this reason we\u2019ll be even mightier than last week.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFC – ESFAHAN, Sepahan boss Amir Ghalenoei claimed his side are yet to show anything…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22614,"featured_media":11003,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c17-asian-competitions"],"views":2133,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22614"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.persianfootball.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}